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Austin Energy storm update, 11am Tuesday

by KJCE Staff,posted Mar 20 2012 11:36AM

Austin Energy says about 1,600 customers remain without power. Between the hours of 6 and 9 a.m., a large number of customers reported outages after waking up, doubling the number of locations that repairs need to be made from about 40 to 80. That number is currently back down to around 40 locations. The majority of outages include a hand full of homes each. The largest outage is in the 183/Fairfield area, between Ohlen Rd. and Fairfield Dr. where a half dozen poles are down. There are about 250 customers in that area still without power. Austin Energy repair crews are replacing the six poles, but the work is taking some additional time due to the fact that the right-of-way in that location is shared between Austin Energy and Texas Gas Service.

Crews are doing manual digging to ensure they do not come in contact with any gas lines. Once the new poles are up, all of the electric equipment including four transformers (gray boxes at the top of the poles) will need to be installed. Austin Energy has 25 repair crews and a half dozen tree trimming crews working in the field. The utility projects it will take most of the afternoon to complete all repairs.